Affective Projections vs. Cognitive Babble

Word-play. Mind-speak. Some rambling. Some “academic writing.” Regardless, the words digress heavily into uncharted and unprovoked avenues that will scatter the audience about accordingly. Inherent struggle representative through trying to balance emotional and factual knowledge. Can words be organized to represent some scattered thoughts and still be used academically? Must admit that this is “all over the place.” Unfocusedis what a college professor would offer as a conclusion to the chaos. These bouncing words. I also admit that the mind is “all over the place” with the thoughts, even when engaged within standardized formalities of writing. The mind wanders and wonders, never quite reaching a destination, always bobbing and weaving the jabs, looking for something. All is transitory. Everything is vanity. Not trying to restrain the mind from writing. Not trying to restrain how far this writing goes. Don’t want to know myself by the end of it all. No I. No My. No Me.

Performance + Wordiness + Vague + Incoherent + Unfocused + Playful = My writing.

Performance + Wordiness + Vague + Incoherent + Unfocused + Playful = My life.

Higher academia, eh? Been bombarded again and again with the “progressive” concepts of dynamic curriculum, collaborative learning, social responsibility, facilitating and guiding, Dewey and the gang, philosophical inquiry, classroom innovations of technology, higher-order thinking questions, explicit modeling, positive reinforcement, and on and on and on. And on... All of these measures seem to be advocated as if they are apologies for the “failing” educational system. They are perhaps Edgar Allan Poe’s “Silver Bells.” They are the optimistic future of a system that can change and will change. Must change. They seem to read as reparations for a society gone down the drain through schooling. ‘What a world of merriment their melody foretells!’ A shoddy platform. Change you can believe in. CHANGE. The old-timers, the geezers… they will tell you that if you think the glass is half-full, you can change anything. And on and on… and so forth.

Read as a laundry list, however, these terms can clang and bang and smash and crush. Inalienable rights of reactionary educators that should be not allowed but fixed guarantees. Are they perhaps Poe’s “Iron bells?” Do they provoke change from deep-pitted anger, detachment, and resentment? There is certainly a ‘melancholy menace in their tone.’ They might not actually be the research-paper theses of an optimistic young teacher. Hypocritically quoting iconic dead educationists. The negative reinforcer. Compromise his integrity for his whole life, never complain or question. Grow numb to the consistent subjection of drilled morality. Indifferent to change. Comfort in living life according to a template of black and white, yes or no, this-way-or-that-way. A pawn wielded beyond his power, as an expendable commoner. Usable. Expendable.

IS THERE A WAY FOR BOTH BELLS TO RING AT ONCE?